Our capacity to COMFORTABLY GET DOWN to the ground and COMFORTABLY GET BACK UP AGAIN is serious stuff! Maybe you notice in yourself or certainly in others around you an anxiety to get to the floor and back up again. As adults we rarely go to the ground and play around “down there”. For many of us it scares us. Fear of pain, a difficulty in figuring out how to do something we use to do but don’t feel as safe because of stiffness, or maybe there’s concern about losing our balance and falling? Any of this sound familiar?

When we lose this curiosity to play and ground-time, what happens is a decrease in our ability to function efficiently. Fear of falling becomes the norm and we slowly lose our independence. According to new scientific research, it can even determine how long we live!

When we learned how to move and get up off the floor for the first time it happened by accident. Think as a baby -> infant -> toddler, how you had to discover balance, skeletal support and muscular efficiency. We didn’t think about it, it just happened, standing up on our own two feet for the first time, it took us by surprise! In truth, it took lots of time with lots of curiosity that fueled our play, our explorations to continue to figure out how to do something that enabled more in our lives.

When we give up on this play time, the result is too often a stiff body and rigid mind, neither of which can bend and play, or discover an invent like we once did.

Unfortunately, most of us have lost this curiosity and desire to play with our body and imagination in the way we once did. We might diligently work out, reps and sets, doing our exercises but is this with awareness or are we just in a pattern where our brain tunes out?

Remember how as a kid we made believe for hours, fantasizing in our joyful imagination of what could be. Can you remember how that made you feel, the endorphins and good hormones that fueled our healthy growth? Do you ever wish you could revisit those moments of feeling so good, free an uninhibited?

When we keep exploring with awareness the richness and diversity of movement that our body can offer, it opens up richness and diversity in both thought and creativity! When we cease this richness and diversity, our body and brain get dull along with it. You know the saying, “Don’t use it, lose it!”!

Here is what I keep learning and share, continue to explore new and different things that you have a desire or interest in. Do little bits at a time, bring your attention and awareness to what you are doing. Anat Baniel, a phenomenal creature of learning from the origins of The Feldenkrais Method (R) speaks of “Awaring”. Just like playing, thinking, feeling, sensing, loving, we need to keep our attention with mindfulness in action, just like any verb/gerund.

I do this daily, playing, exploring whatever I do with a freshness and newness to everything. I bring an Awareness Through Movement (R) into everything I do, with intention and pleasure. In doing so I keep my mind and body active, freer and happier! Wishing you the same!